This work exemplifies Pauline Shaw’s synthesis of personal experience with larger cultural and spiritual histories. Employing craft-based techniques of felting and glass blowing, Shaw presents us with two birds and a snake on a blue background of sky, mountains, and sea, punctuated with glass charm peonies and lotuses. Third Bird references ancient Chinese wall tapestries and paper cutouts found in Chinese folk art, alluding to cultural, ancestral, and personal history. This quality relates to Shaw’s larger art practice, which draws upon her experience as a first-generation Asian American woman looking closely at diasporic and immigrant narratives.

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